Wood

Monday 30 May 2011

Stories and Scotland


Tuesday
Tuesday at work I got to write a story about Marks and Spencer! It’s my favorite grocery store here that I talked about in one of my first blogs!


My family is coming to visit this weekend, but my dad had a conference, so he got in today. He met Grace Ann and I for dinner in the Spitalfields Market area. It was so great!

Thursday
Thursday is the last day of our working week, and as great as it’s been, it’s exhausting, so I was looking forward to the weekend, weekend… Sorry, had to.

Anyways, they gave me an extra article to write today, and it was on the homepage of the website! So exciting! For anyone interested in Ratko Mladic, here it is: Ratko Mladic's arrest ends "a very hard chapter in Serbian history"

A group of us went to eat dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Soho. They gave us two baby-sized bowls of chips-there were 7 of us- AND chip refills weren’t free. They obviously have not figured out how to do Mexican here yet. But other than the chip fiasco, it was really good!

We stopped at The Crown on the way home, and we hung out there for a while.  They had a fantastic music selection, and we sang every word to Say My Name. Just when we thought it couldn’t get much better than that, Sweet Home Alabama came on.

Friday
On Friday Grace Ann and I woke up and went to Crepe Affaire for breakfast. It’s a cute little crepe place like Crepe Myrtle right by our housing. It was so good! I got a Chicken Supreme and an I’ll Have What She’s Having, which was a desert crepe with Belgium chocolate, strawberries, and whipped cream. Yummm!

We made a little pit stop at the market, AND we found another market. These things are really bad for my newly found frugality.

After that we met up with my Dad and went to the train station to catch our train to Edinburgh, Scotland!

We stayed at the cutest Bed & Breakfast called Dorstan. We had the whole first floor to ourselves, and half the time I forgot we weren’t staying in our own little house.



The man who owns it lives next door with his family. He was so sweet, and he cooked us breakfast for dinner even though it was like 10!

My mom, Anna, and Andrew got in later that night, and it was so great to see everybody! We got little breakfast menus to fill out with our orders for the morning- they we’re so great!


Saturday
In the morning we woke up and went to the Breakfast Room and got what we ordered the night before. I got grapefruit, poached eggs, bacon, and toast, and it was all so good!




After breakfast we walked around town. I mean ALL around town. We took a cab back later and were shocked by how far we had walked-this was partially because we started out in the wrong direction for at least 25 minutes before we turned around-but it was cool to see everything. Scotland is beautiful, but the weather is SO weird. It would go through this cycle of sunny and pleasant to sprinkling to hailing and pouring down rain with wind that could blow you over about every 15 minutes.  


The most amazing candy shop we stumbled upon.
Don't we look impressed?


Scottish lambs!

Wouldn't be the first time Andrew's worn a kilt!

Proud member of the MacDonald Clan!

We walked down the Royal Mile, which is just a stretch of old cathedrals and other historical structures mixed in with some new shops and restaurants. 



The Mile ends with the Edinburgh Castle. We took a short tour and then looked around a little bit. The whole area was incredible, and it was really interesting to learn about some of the big parts of Scotland’s history.


In front of the Edinburgh Castle!


Beautiful.

We enjoyed the gift shop a little too much.

After that we went back to the B & B and watched Braveheart. Yes, we watched Braveheart in Scotland. Cheesy, I know. I had never seen it before though, and it was so good! It was cool to watch it there for the first time.

Sunday
On Sunday we took a train to St. Andrews. After the usual amount of Bonner family travel delays- a tree fell on the train tracks when we were one stop away- we got there and it was SO beautiful.

Waiting for the train to St. Andrews with Andrew!
Punny, right 219?! 

First we went to the golf course, and it was incredible! Cody, good thing we watched the entire British Open last summer-I’m sure that really gave me a whole new appreciation for the place. We all got to hit a little bit, and Anna, Grace Ann, and I were absolutely terrible. Still, it was cool!



Such a pro.

Not quite there yet...

...

 ...And neither was I...

...And neither was she.

So we just decided to watch.  


After that we walked into town and got their famous Fish and Chips for lunch! So good!


Yummm!

We decided to walk down to the Castle Ruins after lunch, but on the way we passed an interesting little coffee shop.


Some people probably don’t know about St. Andrews because of the golf course, but because of the college where William and Kate met. The coffee shop had this huge sign on the window.


There was this newspaper article about William and Kate next to the sign.

I can’t decide if they meant that they actually met there, or that they would meet there for coffee. Either way, it was fun to see!

We made it to the Castle Ruins area and is was SO beautiful! It was right on the water and it was such a pretty day!





Don't worry, Andrew hitched a train for us so we could get back to Edinburgh.

Monday
Saying goodbye to our new friends and their B & B!

On the train back to London.

The view on the way back.

Hope everyone’s having a great Memorial Day! We got the day off too for a Bank Holiday! 

Isaiah 26:12
Lord, you will establish peace for us, for you have also done all our work for us.








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